Business Hours - generally 9am to 5pm, weekdays, and 9am to 12am on Saturdays, except Public Holidays when hours may vary. Shops and local stores open from 10 or 11am to 10pm, daily.

Banking hours- Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3.30pm. Currency exchange booths are usually open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Currency is the Thai Baht. Check out our handy Currency Convertor to find the value in your own currency.

Cameras and Film Most popular brands and types of film are widely available in Thailand and in Phuket. Film processing is widely available and 2 hour service is common. Throw-away one-time cameras are widely available, too.

Electricity - 220 Volts. Several different plugs and sockets are in use, but two pin flat (US type) or round (European type) are pretty universal. Adapters can bought at local stores.

Geography
Some north of the Equator, and well below the latitudes of destructive tropical storms, Phuket's balmy tropical climate is tempered by cool northeasterly breezes from November to March, and by fresh on-shore winds in summer months.

Time is + 7 hours ahead of GMT, 1 hour behind Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.

Detailed Maps of the island and surrounding areas, are availableHere

Phuket is the natural base for exploring the Andaman Sea.

The Andaman Sea, separated from the Bay of Bengal by the Andaman-Nicobar Ridge, is part of the Indian Ocean. Thailand's Andaman coast extends for 870 km from the Surin Islands on the northern border with Burma to Tarutao National Park on the southern border with Malaysia. Hundreds of islands are accessible to small craft from Phuket, many of them uninhabited, many of them forested and fringed with spectacular coral reefs. You often won't find even a footprint on the beach.

Two distinctively different varieties of island are found in the Andaman Sea, each of them scenically striking in its own way. Low-relief granite intrusions, which include the Surin and Similan islands, run in series roughly parallel to the more dramatic limestone islands. Island groups such as Koh Phi Phi have been shaped by a variety of forces from a massive limestone platform that was deposited 350 million to 450 million years ago.

Phuket Island itself is mainly granite, with low forested mountains and a series of fine white-sand beaches, mostly on the west coast. Much of the forest has been cleared, first for rubber plantations and then for tourism development. The one remaining significant stand of virgin rainforest is the Khao Phra Thaeo Park a protected national park area where you can take short treks or visit the waterfall.

Phang Nga and Krabi provinces, mainland and islands alike, have the same dramatic limestone ("karst") scenery of the Phi Phi Islands. Many different tours leave daily for Phang Nga, well worth a visit.

Khao Sok National Park, on the mainland just to the north of Phuket, has large areas of tropical forest, which have an amazing variety of plants and animals. Eco-tours have started in the last few years, offering the opportunity to experience the forest and get close to nature. Most operate in small groups to minimise any impact on the environment.

Population
The official census shows 231,206 people living in Phuket. This figure only includes those registered as resident in Phuket province, however there is a significant (semi-permanent) work force from other provinces of Thailand and as many as 35,000 visitors at any one time. It is therefore likely that the real figures are much higher. Phuket Town, the main town, has over 60,000 people.

Ethnic composition

• Thai
  
• Chinese
  
• Muslim (originally of Malay descent)
  
• Chao Le (sea nomads)
  
• European
  
• Indian and Arabic Top
  

Industry

* Tourism
In the past decade, tourism has become the biggest earner for the area, and continues to grow rapidly with more than 3 million visitors every year. In recent years, tourism revenues have resulted in better roads, better hospitals and public utilities. However one of the main issues now facing Phuket, is how to maintain a balance between the benefits of tourism while sustaining the natural attractions that originally brought visitors here.

* Other industries

Rubber. First introduced from Malaya in 1903, the orderly ranks of rubber trees soon came to define much of the local landscape. Rubber plantations are still much in evidence, but soaring real estate values and the boom in tourism has meant that land is being turned to other uses.

Tin has been mined on Phuket from time immemorial, however the demand for the metal has declined. Tin dredging in offshore waters has decreased in the past few years, by zoning regulations designed to help protect the coral reefs and beaches of the west coast. Old tin-mine workings on land, meanwhile, are being converted from unsightly scars in the landscape to beautiful resort hotel developments, yacht marinas, golf courses and bungee-jumping facilities.

Coconuts, pineapples, bananas, cashews, etc. Agricultural products of various sorts still contribute significantly to Phuket's economy, but more and more farming land - even rice paddies - are being given over to housing estates, roads, and other infrastructure.

Fishing still forms an important part of life for the people living along the coast, however small-scale fisheries are being hurt by modern trawling, some of it illegal. Large-scale fisheries, meanwhile, are threatened with the depletion of commercial fish stocks from over-fishing.

Environment

The waters around Phuket contain some excellent underwater scenery and fringing coral reefs with the result that diving has become a major Phuket-based recreational industry.

This region's coral reefs are home to a huge variety of coral reef fish and hard corals. Add to this, an undetermined number of soft coral species plus tens of thousands of other marine organisms, including crustaceans, echinoderms, and worms, each with its own role in maintaining the coral reef ecosystem as a whole and you have a fascinating diving environment.

These waters include more than 850 species of pelagic fish (open-water as opposed to demersal, or those living near the bottom), many of them of commercial value. The Andaman Sea is on the migration routes of classic fighting fish such as the blue marlin. Other much-sought-after trophy fish are black marlin (relatively scarce), sailfish, barracuda and a variety of sharks, notably tigers and makos.

Five species of sea turtle nest on islands in Thai waters - leatherbacks, green turtles, loggerheads, hawksbills, and ridleys. All of these are endangered species, and they are less frequently sighted every year. Aside from more than 30 recorded species of sea snakes, the only other marine reptile in the region is the brackish-water crocodile, virtually extinct, a species which inhabits mangrove swamps and river estuaries along the southern peninsula.

Other marine life of note includes the mammals. At least two species of dolphin are commonly found in Thai waters: the Indian porpoise and the long-nosed dolphin. Whalesharks are also occasional visitors. The dugong, or "sea cow", is now all but extinct, and the Thai Fisheries Department has declared it a protected species.